Monday, 23 April 2012

Mindfulness of Phenomena, Pt.2

‘All our anxieties and
difficulties come from our inability to see the true face, or true sign of
things.’ Thich Nhat Hanh

If Buddhism denies a permanent self, then how do we
deal with the issue of identity? Who are we really? What is the basis of our
sense of being ‘a somebody’ that does indeed appear to exist in the world - to
have relationships, work, eat, sleep, piss about on Facebook and read Buddhist
books? In Wallace’s words we are informed that there is not a permanent, fixed
self; yet a self of some kind does exist, even if it is simply seen at first as
the process of moving and shifting reference points, preferences, relationships
and roles.

Initial questions in response to the teachings of
no-self tend to emerge from the insecurity, doubt and fear that arises in
response to the idea that no-self =‘I don’t exist’, when you quite clearly do. You’re
reading this, right? Underneath such potential insecurities is the existential
fear of non-existence, of being nothing and therefore believing somehow that
there is no meaning in our existence. This is a fear I have experimented
personally and I am fully aware of how unnerving it can be. However, no-self
does not mean that we are merely a mass of biological processes, a cog in the
wheel of organic life. Such perspectives on existence constitute a form of Nihilism,
which is one of the great mistaken views in Buddhism. So, we can relax knowing
that at least in Buddhism, this is not the intended meaning of no-self.

The questions should perhaps be then, not whether
you exist, but ‘How do I exist?’ and ‘If there is no permanent central core
within me somewhere, then what am I really?’ Discovering that a solid, core
self is non-existent should not lead us to deny what we do wake up to each day.
Our lives stand before us each morning. A tangible world that starts with our
bed, the walls of our bedroom, the home that we inhabit, the street below, the
feelings and sensations of warmth and of cold, and so on. The Buddhist path is
not about denying life and existence. I like to think of it as the establishing
of new rules of engagement and enquiry outside of our conditioned, patterned,
personal history and collective blindness in order to see and experience things
as they are, unconditioned. We are usually so driven to find final, definite
answers that we often lose a sense of what the real issue is. Does it matter
what we believe? Sure. Does it matter which position we adopt? Certainly. But
do we need to be so concerned with getting the ‘right’ philosophical, religious
or psychological belief, the final answer, to define ultimate reality or the
end game of existence and life? No. At least I don’t believe so. To do so might
simply be another mental construct we use to define our sense of self and
position ourselves against, or for, a particular side in the endless debates
about the true and ultimate nature of things. It is much more useful and
relevant to explore directly the mechanisms within you that shape the reality
you experience and live. In this way your personal experience takes precedence
over the adoption of particular philosophical stances and the idea of no-self
becomes an open invitation to explore the ramifications of such a possibility
on your life, not only on the meditation cushion, but also in the moments
in-between.

Whatever arises becomes
a support for your meditation by providing an object of awareness; relaxing
with the natural arising and falling of all phenomena leads to a panoramic
mindfulness – rest there.

Identity is fluid and positional and in part it is
a story that emerges through the large collection of experiences we’ve had up
until now. These are accompanied by and interwoven with the stories we’ve taken
on from family members, friends, school, university, religion and society, as
well as the myths both individually formed and absorbed from the collective of
the particular moment of history we are living through. The human world is
centred on the need of a fixed self; we are supposed to be somebody with a
clear identity, fixed clear needs, wants and desires. In our relationships we
are expected to conform to a stable and reliable form and to behave in fairly
predictable ways. We are supposed to vote for the left or the right, get a job
and identify ourselves with the roles we take on through work and the building
of a family unit. These elements form the structure within which our supposed self
is expected to thrive and within which we are to be happy and fulfilled as a
‘productive member of society’.

The self that we conventionally invest in though
does not exist and the mores of society are a house of cards. Have a look for a
core within you that defines you and you’ll find it is missing in action. By
that I mean search within your body, feelings, and mind for some essential
element that is the core of your being and unchanging, not dependent to some
degree on circumstances, and you will likely be disappointed. How do we go
about doing this? A traditional Buddhist tactic is to break down phenomena into
five parts called aggregates, and then examine them each for the illusive self.

There is no existing
independently. You arise in accordance with phenomena.

Investigating the Five aggregates involves looking intentfully at what makes up our
experience of being in and of the world. It is an examining of how we personally
define what is inside and outside the physical space that we occupy. Within the
Five Aggregates, or Five
Constituents, nothing is permanent or self-existing; nothing at all. This
practice challenges our superficial and deeply held assumptions about how things
are.

Many classical interpretations of these teachings
feature a good degree of either excessively technical language, or an obsessive
and renunciate approach to the Five Aggregates which defines them as literally ‘being
suffering’. Both of which I find personally unhelpful and in the case of the
latter, which is world-denying, dismissive of our humanity. I find the idea of
our existence as being the base of suffering as unsophisticated and ignoble and
also counter-intuitive. This doesn’t mean that it isn’t true in part. But, boy
is it incomplete in giving value and understanding to our lot as human beings.

If we can accept that Buddhism as a whole does not
invest in the essentialist fallacy, then perhaps we could mature our view of
ourselves and life in general by seeing disparate perspectives on life as
simply perspectives: Views of the human condition from different mountain
peaks, that although seemingly incompatible at times, can be integrated into a
looser, eclectic appreciation of the wonders of thought and human evolution.
This is one of the great possibilities gifted to us through post-modern
thought. It is a profound appreciation for individuality, but be careful,
Chogyam Trungpas’ warning about Spiritual Materialism remains. New-Age wonders boys and girls
are still to be found in abundance, actively seeking surrogate spiritual
masters to show them the next fad and the easiest most effortless pill to
swallow to guarantee ‘enlightenment’ and true happiness. Open your mind fully,
explore, remain curious, but commit to a practice that works. Integration and
inclusivity do not equal jumping from one easy answer to the next; they mean
harnessing multiple perspectives and truths and placing them in
right-relationship with the core practices and path that we choose to follow. It
is an approach that is willing to entertain doubt and not maintain beliefs and
tradition for belief’s and tradition’s sake.

Pierce through the idea
of an ‘I’ by recognising the lack of an independent self. This leads into
seeing the nature of the world from inside out. Perceiving the lack of an
independent self in all phenomena.

The process of investigating the Five Aggregates is
intriguing and rich with opportunity to see deeply into our lives. Gaining
insight into the nature of these five parts of our world and our relationship
to each of them can be fascinating, and liberating. We discover the freedom
that can be felt as a result of not holding onto our world and our definitions so
tightly. Life being the paradoxical thing that it is though, as we loosen our
grip on needing to affirm our fixed sense of who we are, we find ourselves
naturally more confident in being as we are more frequently and in more and
more situations. We find that a fixed sense of self puts us in opposition to so
much and that separation is the underlying element that feeds our multiple
sources of suffering.

The Five
Aggregates are;

1.Form; anything made of matter

2.Feeling; the registering of the quality and flavour of
phenomena divided into the basic categories of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral.
This is the basis for separating ourselves from experience.

3.Perception; means focus of awareness i.e. sensorial
engagement with distinct facets of phenomena. It is identification and
conceptualisation. This is where we establish the gap between perceiver and
perceived.

4.Mental-formations; mental states, feelings in the
way of states, emotions, will, desire, impulsive moving away or towards. The
formation of a seemingly separate entity through attachment and aversion to
particular states and experiences, concepts, beliefs, etc, etc.

5.Consciousness; means awareness experienced through the five
senses.

Working with the five aggregates involves actively
exploring them in order to identify an essential root, or permanent source. We
invest a sense of individuality into these five that in truth is non-existent.
In actively examining them and searching within each we are able to move
towards taking the leap into an initial step of liberation, or awakening. This
actually means a profound engagement with the reality that you are not separate
from what you experience. For this change to occur, this perception must take
place within the entirety of our being. A mere intellectual or intuitive grasp will
not suffice. Because the matrix of interwoven habits, patterns, beliefs and
ideas are complex, gross and subtle, it can take many years to make genuine
progress in peeling off the layers of conditioning. For some it may come
quickly, for most, it takes ongoing, dedicated practice.

This experience of breaking through is non-conceptual
and arises in its own time. There are traditions that invite students to engage
immediately with the awakened state of non-self. They often emerge from
Hinduism and are generally categorised as Advaita. I have little experience of
such traditions although I’ve no doubt that some of them are perfectly valid.
There are many false starts though in meeting the dismantling of our phantom
self and history is littered with cases of individuals claiming to be
enlightened, awakened, and turning out to be rather dysfunctional and at times
criminal individuals. The Buddhist path tends towards the gradual way although
there are exceptions. Diving into an experience of no-self too quickly can
actually be damaging and highly confusing and is best arrived at under the
guidance of a competent teacher. It is perhaps healthiest also to consider it
as a natural result of practice that emerges with the maturation of our
development.

Seeking goals in Buddhism is often pointed out as a
mistaken approach. In reality we are naturally goal orientated and modern life
compounds this. Putting
our goals into alignment with our practice and where we actually are at in our
emotional, mental and spiritual development can help us counteract idealistic
desires for quick attainments, or the opposite, an inferiority complex, where
we wallow about in our current experience of limited living.

Actively engaging each as areas to search for our ‘essence’ leads to the
direct recognition that there really is no fixed part within us that can be
deemed to define our totality.

Even in consciousness there is no true self and in
fact the possibility for such a thing to exist is illogical once you start to
explore the interdependent nature of all phenomena. Since flux, decay, change,
birth, evolution and death are the constant in life for all forms, how could an
island exist within each and every individual as a refuge for some final
essence? Consciousness is like a sea of awareness which we emerge into through
releasing fully and openly into the present breath. What remains once this
breakthrough has occurred is in part a real mystery and what becomes clearer
and clearer is that we are essentially a being that is in process and in
coexistent relationship with the world. We are in an ongoing experiment in
playing at being human. Once we make the breakthrough our characteristics
remain. Our preferences don’t disappear overnight, but they cease to become the
anchors that bind us to fixed positions that once seemed so important. Playing
our own individual experiment to the best of our ability becomes a play of
sorts, an exercise in impeccability, in which new choices can be made, and
which with time, begins to merge with a profound and lived realisation of the
four noble truths as an extremely sane way of being in the world. This opens us
to embracing the sacredness of this human existence. The depths of felt
appreciation for simply being are best worded in the language of the sacred,
and dare I say it, the mystical.

Gaining this insight is similar to going down the
rabbit hole with Alice, or taking the red pill in the Matrix. It causes a major
and permanent shift in our perceptions and experience. Life does go on, but
with a different quality and less of a hidden agenda. It’s actually quite a
challenging process at first that can lead to exhilarating moments of freedom
and doubt. In many ways it is a metaphysical pulling out of the rug from
underneath the rules we have established for how the world is supposed to be.

What lies underneath is to be experienced
firsthand. Part of a wise strategy in dealing with this new game of life, can
be found in the seven factors of enlightenment. Because the game hasn’t
finished once we’ve taken our first full view of the nature of things. Not at
all. In many ways the real work begins. Making our liberation step worth a damn
we commit to progressing through further stages of awakening where our long
held sense of self-preservation and isolation from others gives way to a
natural inclusivity that is traditionally termed compassion in Buddhism.

Enjoying all phenomena
as purity and equality without accepting or rejecting = mindfulness of
phenomena.

Approaching the experience of non-dual awareness is
oft best arrived at through inspiration. This perhaps explains why so many
mystics were poets, why so many definitions of the awakened state are visually and
linguistically dramatic. Perhaps it is time though for a more rational and
measured view of what signifies freedom within the process of awakening. Why
should such important aspects of the human condition be preserved only in the
realms and spheres of religion and spirituality? It is quite possible; highly
likely, that we are moving towards an understanding of the inter-relationship
between the brain and the evolutionary process that marks the path of
concentration, insight and awakening. I wonder if will develop a sophisticated
enough method for measuring such activity in usable terms at some point? For
now though, we have Buddhism and its core teachings as one of the most
sophisticated and complete systems for understanding the human condition and
how to work with it.

2 comments:

'Diving into an experience of no-self too quickly can actually be damaging and highly confusing and is best arrived at under the guidance of a competent teacher.' HEAR HEAR!

Matthew, thanks again for sharing this with us. I have another question: how is it that we can investigate the five aggregates in our practice? Is this something we can embark on alone or (as above) best done with the supervision and guidance of a teacher? I guess I'm wondering how a meditator would actually approach them - are there specific methods?

The teachings on the Five Aggregates can be found in most Buddhist traditions, but are followed in the Theravada traditions most commonly in a deconstructive manner. I am more for an integrative approach, or what we might term as world-affirming, which makes sense considering my background in the shamanic path. Although I think ultimately, whatever your tradition or particular inkling, the two must accompany each other and take their place in the evolution of ongoing practice and experience. Actively identifying each of the factors and how they play out in our personal experience allows us to operate with greater awareness and see the co-dependency that takes place between each. We can get clearer about how we interact with experience to get or avoid certain feelings, states and so on. This is a path to greater autonomy from reactive living. Ultimately though presence is based on our ability to integrate the Four Factors. If we live them as separate experiences, we will tend to accentuate separation. Therefore on the cushion I would suggest trying a simple integrative method of inclusiveness. This would involve acknowledging each at the start of sitting one by one and allowing awareness to include them all in the experience of being. You could even name them individually. So, once you've taken your posture and seat, you rest awareness on the body, feeling the parts of the body and including any areas that tend to be ignored like the lower back, the elbows, the groin, etc. Then include sensations/feelings in the body, of temperature, comfort, dullness, pleasure, pain, etc. Then any particular mood, or mental state that is present including emotions, serenity, agitation and so on. Then, finally, the experience of generally being connected to all of these and the world around you, i.e. the physical space in which you’re situated. You are gradually inviting every aspect of being into the present and into practice. This is a more world-affirming approach in which you embrace the various aspects that make up your experience of being in the world. Of course this is better discussed with a teacher if you want to practice seriously.

Pages

About Me

I'm a Life Coach, Core Shamanic Counsellor and meditation teacher to boot. I also teach English in Trieste, Italy. I follow a non-traditional expression of Buddhism and also run occasional events over the border from Trieste in Slovenia on Shamanism. Email me if you're curious about any of these activities.

Benvenuti (welcome)

This blog started out as an experiment. It continues to be such to this day. The opinions you will find in these pages are my own, and like all material on this Earth, are subject to change due to that hidden factor of impermanence.

This blog started out as an experiment. Writing is an art and one which I am only now starting to develop any capacity in. All of my writing constitutes a learning process in the presentation of ideas, opinions and experience. I am no expert, but I am doing my best to develop and learn from each piece I publish.

This blog started out as an experiment. I've no idea where it will end up. I explore Buddhist and Shamanic themes in this blog. Both areas which interest a fairly small percentage of Western society. Therefore this blog is quite specialist. It goes one step further by not representing any particular tradition in either of these spiritual arenas, although I have grounding in two shamanic worlds; one a path, the other an approach to counselling. My experience of Buddhism is primarily within the Tibetan and Theravada traditions.